1941 Retro Hugo Award Finalists--initial whims

Announcement text courtesy File 770

The finalists for the 1941 Retro Hugo Awards were announced on Tuesday, April 26...
There were 481 valid nominating ballots (475 electronic and 6 paper) received and counted from the members of Sasquan, MidAmeriCon II, and Worldcon 75.

BEST NOVEL (352 ballots)

• Kallocain by Karin Boye (Bonnier)
• Gray Lensman by E.E. “Doc” Smith (Astounding Science-Fiction, Jan 1940)
• Slan by A.E. Van Vogt (Astounding Science-Fiction, Dec 1940)
• The Ill-Made Knight by T.H. White (Collins)
• The Reign of Wizardry by Jack Williamson (Unknown, Mar 1940)

Mason: The Boye is a dystopian Swedish novel, apparently; Boye perhaps comparable to a combination of Stephen Vincent Benet and Robert Frost in her country, reportedly best and widely known for her poetry.  I'd probably lean toward the White or the Williamson, but haven't yet read either, unless the Boye is very well translated. Reminders of what I need to read. 

BEST NOVELLA (318 ballots)

• “The Mathematics of Magic” by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt (Unknown, Aug 1940)
• “The Roaring Trumpet” by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt (Unknown, May 1940)
• “Coventry” by Robert A. Heinlein (Astounding Science-Fiction, July 1940)
• “If This Goes On…” by Robert A. Heinlein (Astounding Science-Fiction, Feb 1940)
• “Magic, Inc.” by Robert A. Heinlein (Unknown, Sept 1940)

Mason: I have read "The Roaring Trumpet" and "The Devil Makes the Law" (the original of "Magic, Inc."). Between those, it's almost a toss-up. Really should catch up here, too.

BEST NOVELETTE (310 ballots)

• “Farewell to the Master” by Harry Bates (Astounding Science-Fiction, Oct 1940)
• “Blowups Happen” by Robert A. Heinlein (Astounding Science-Fiction, Sept 1940)
• “The Roads Must Roll” by Robert A. Heinlein (Astounding Science-Fiction, June 1940)
• “It” by Theodore Sturgeon (Unknown, Aug 1940)
• “Darker Than You Think” by Jack Williamson (Unknown, Dec 1940)

Mason: File 770 readers note correctly that the Williamson in the original is already a novella, so it's weird it's here (the longer form was published as a novel later). I've read all of these, and "It" is it. In the strongest prose field, perhaps. (Bates was the founding editor of Astounding, and this easily his best-known story, perhaps not least as the source of The Day the Earth Stood Still.)

BEST SHORT STORY (324 ballots)

• “Strange Playfellow” (a.k.a. “Robbie”) by Isaac Asimov (Super Science Stories, Sept 1940)
• “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” by Jorge Luis Borges (Sur, 1940)
• “Martian Quest” by Leigh Brackett (Astounding Science-Fiction, Feb 1940)
• “The Stellar Legion” by Leigh Brackett (Planet Stories, Winter 1940)
• “Requiem” by Robert A. Heinlein (Astounding Science-Fiction, Jan 1940)

Mason: I have yet to read either Brackett, and it's odd we have so many clumping finalists here...clearly, we see whose work people are nostalgic about. Borges would probably get my nod. But I really like Brackett.

BEST GRAPHIC STORY (92 ballots)

• Batman #1 (Detective Comics, Spring 1940)
• Captain Marvel: “Introducing Captain Marvel” by Bill Parker and C. C. Beck (Whiz Comics #2, Feb 1940)
• Flash Gordon: “The Ice Kingdom of Mongo” by Alex Raymond and Don Moore (King Features Syndicate, Apr 1940)
• The Spectre: “The Spectre”/”The Spectre Strikes! ” by Jerry Siegel and Bernard Baily (More Fun Comics #52/53, Feb/Mar 1940)
• The Origin of the Spirit by Will Eisner (Register and Tribune Syndicate, June 1940)

Mason: I loved the 1970s Spectre, and would need to read the Eisner item, before I probably do opt for the Spirit over even Capt. Marvel. Early Batman interesting but crude, as I recall. True comics fans might well agonize over this shortlist.

BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION (LONG FORM) (250 ballots)

• Dr. Cyclops written by Tom Kilpatrick, directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack (Paramount Pictures)
• Fantasia written by Joe Grant and Dick Huemer, directed by Samuel Armstrong et al. (Walt Disney Productions, RKO Radio Pictures)
• Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe written by George H. Plympton, Basil Dickey, and Barry Shipman, directed by Ford Beebe and Ray Taylor (Universal Pictures)
• One Million B.C. written by Mickell Novack, George Baker, and Joseph Frickert, directed by Hal Roach and Hal Roach, Jr. (United Artists)
• The Thief of Bagdad written by Lajos Bíró and Miles Malleson, directed by Michael Powell, Ludwig Berger, and Tim Whelan (London Films, United Artists)

Mason: I like the Disney and Cyclops is worth a look, but The Thief of Bagdad doesn't need a flying carpet here to outpace the competition.. 

BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION (SHORT FORM) (123 ballots)

• Merrie Melodies: “A Wild Hare” written by Rich Hogan, directed by Tex Avery (Warner Bros.)
• The Adventures of Superman: “The Baby from Krypton” written by George Ludlam, produced by Frank Chase (WOR/Mutual Broadcasting System)
• The Invisible Man Returns written by Joe May, Kurt Siodmak, and Lester Cole, directed by Joe May (Universal Pictures)
• Pinocchio written by Ted Sears et al., directed by Ben Sharpsteen and Hamilton Luske (Walt Disney Productions, RKO Radio Pictures)
• Looney Tunes: “You Ought to Be in Pictures” written by Jack Miller, directed by Friz Freleng (Warner Bros.)

Mason: I guess the third and fourth are shorter than 90'. At the moment, I'd lean "Wild Hare"...

BEST EDITOR – SHORT FORM (183 ballots)

• John W. Campbell (Unknown Fantasy Fiction, Astounding Science-Fiction)
• Dorothy McIlwraith (Weird Tales, Short Stories)
• Raymond A. Palmer (Fantastic Adventures, Amazing Stories)
• Frederik Pohl (Astonishing Stories, Super Science Stories)
• Mort Weisinger (Strange Stories, Startling Stories, Thrilling Wonder Stories)

Mason: I'd lean McIlwraith. Even given the year Campbell's having (though next year would be better). Pohl for pluck; he's 19 years old and has the lowest-budgeted sf magazines in the field, but happily has his fellow Futurians to solicit stories from, and several of the better established writers of the time seem willing to throw him a bone or at least stories sometimes foolishly rejected by their usual markets.

BEST PROFESSIONAL ARTIST (117 ballots)

• Hannes Bok
• Margaret Brundage
• Edd Cartier
• Virgil Finlay
• Frank R. Paul
• Hubert Rogers

Note: Category has 6 nominees due to a tie for 5th place.

Mason: Bok by an elegantly elongated nose. Though Finlay would get my nod perhaps tomorrow, as already doing his best work. Frank Paul is a big No, though oddly his abstracts were rather good, as opposed to any sort of figure drawing (every creature in his universe wears jodhpurs). Brundage limited, if good within her compass. Cartier and Rogers doing excellent work. 

BEST FANZINE (63 ballots)

• Futuria Fantasia by Ray Bradbury
• Le Zombie by Arthur Wilson “Bob” Tucker
• Novacious by Forrest J Ackerman and Morojo
• Spaceways by Harry Warner, Jr.
• Voice of the Imagi-Nation by Forrest J Ackerman and Morojo

Mason: Bob Tucker the best fannish writer here.

BEST FAN WRITER (70 ballots)

• Forrest J Ackerman
• Ray Bradbury
• H. P. Lovecraft
• Arthur Wilson “Bob” Tucker
• Harry Warner

Mason: I might give it to Warner for his utter openness to every sort of literary fannishness. When Tucker's still the best of these as a fan writer. (And novelist.) File 770 folk note HPL is on the ballot several years after death because his work was still trickling out in the fan press.

FFM: Fritz Leiber, Jody Scott, James Sallis, David R. Bunch; Gary Jennings, Josephine Saxton, Samuel Delany, Judith Merril and Gahan Wilson; Ramsey Campbell, Robert Lowndes and Seabury Quinn: blue covers for some winter/spring fantasy magazines: FANTASTIC, February 1969, edited by Barry N. Malzberg; THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION, February 1969, edited by Edward L. Ferman; STARTLING MYSTERY STORIES, Summer 1969, edited by Robert A. W. Lowndes

Three magazine issues, with blue covers. Why care about these first 1969 issues (even the January issue of F&SF would've been on the stands for Xmas '68) from these titles? Some impressive writers whose names you might be able to, and definitely cannot, make out on these covers: 

Fantastic: Among the contributors of new fiction, Fritz Leiber, of course, but also James Sallis, Jody Scott, Pg Wyal (his first story), Robert Hoskins and others. 

F&SF: Josephine Saxton, but also Gary Jennings (before the best-sellers such as Aztec), Samuel Delany (at this point the film columnist, even as the books are handled by Judith Merril and a set of Gahan Wilson's occasional horror/dark fantasy reviews, along with Wilson's cartoon and Asimov's pop-science essay), a recent translation of Yevgeny Zamyatin and another reprint, from (eventually) mostly tv-writer/producer Larry Brody.

SMS: The magazine which "discovered" Stephen King and F. Paul Wilson features in this issue original work by Ramsey Campbell, along with debut stories by the not so prolific Donna Gould Welk and Ken Porter, interspersed with reprints.

There were more fantasy-fiction magazines publishing in the US than usual in 1969, not least because Sol Cohen, who'd left the Galaxy Magazine Group to buy Fantastic and Amazing from Ziff-Davis in 1965, and with the magazines he'd bought the unlimited serial (magazine) reprint rights to all the stories Ziff-Davis had purchased as a default for their magazine fiction since the late 1930s...as well as the legacy copyrights from earlier publishers of Amazing...Cohen was at the height of his issuing reprint magazines filled with fiction he didn't legally need to pay any royalties for, and a few of those titles he slanted toward fantasy fiction. Strange Fantasy was the first and the best of these (bettered only by a much later one-shot Sword and Sorcery Annual), and took over the volume and issue numbering for two years from Science Fiction Classics beginning in '69. Robert A. W. Lowndes added Weird Terror Tales to his growing line of no-budget, mostly-reprint magazines in '69 (Bizarre Fantasy Tales would begin its brief run in 1970); Arthur Landis got his new digest Coven 13 onto some newsstands, and while Joseph Payne Brennan produced no issue of his boutique project Macabre in '69 (and Lester del Rey's fully professional Worlds of Fantasy offered one issue each in 1968 and 1970 but none in '69), there was a second issue of W. Paul Ganley's Weirdbook among the little or semipro magazines, even if no others offering as impressive a set of contributors of fiction. But aside from Lowndes's Magazine of Horror, the elder sibling to the more psychic-detective- and borderline horror/suspense-oriented SMS, whose March 1969 issue I don't have to hand (it does contain a new R. A. Lafferty story, however) and which doesn't even have a blue cover (the nerve), the three most visible US fantasy-fiction magazines in early '69 were the three I discuss below. 

Barry Malzberg was never too happy during his short term as editor of the Cohen/Ultimate Publications versions of Fantastic and Amazing, though he had managed to get his last issue of Fantastic, this February issue, about half full of original fiction (and the balance an odd mix of relatively random 1950s reprints, including one story each from Clifford Simak, Kendell Crossen and the house

the third issue; contents below

name "Lawrence Chandler," who could've been in this case nearly anyone in a small stable of regular contributors, including founding editor Howard Browne). In fact, the precipitating argument that ended Barry's employment was over whether cover artist William Baker would be paid for his cover image, a not-extraordinarily good nor bad pastel that Cohen apparently hated (and not notably worse, I'd suggest, than the other minor work on the other covers). With the inclusion of Robert Silverberg's essay (though Silverberg had been a columnist for Amazing as edited by Cele Goldsmith Lalli at Ziff-Davis), and fiction by such Malzberg favorites as (Ms.) Jody Scott and Robert Hoskins, Barry was clearly already starting to make his mark on the magazine, even if he wouldn't have much chance to do much more; Ted White would be installed as the new editor with the next issue, and Barry's inventory was probably exhausted with Ted's first issues of the two magazines. Poet Margo Skinner, Leiber's good friend after the death of his wife, wrote two of the reviews without credit in the table of contents, but a byline on the text. Barry's headnotes and "coming next month" are full of praise for the contributors, aside from the diffidence he employs in introducing his own work.
Edward Ferman and his family business (his father, Joseph Ferman, would still be publishing the magazine for the next few years) were readying themselves for the release of the revival of Venture Science Fiction, which would begin with an issue cover-dated May 1969. (Another, shorter-lived project, a magazine about proto-New Age matters, Inner Space, would soon follow.) However unkind fate might be to their other publications, F&SF continued to steadily appear on a monthly basis, and while it didn't have the kind of financial support Analog (as a publication of Condé Nast) had, it faced less instability than any of the other magazines in the fantastic-fiction field; the monetary inflation of the Nixon era, very much including that faced by publishers specifically in terms of paper and postage among other expenses, helped doom both the other titles, however.  This is a solid issue of the magazine, featuring a lead novella by the somewhat underrated James Schmitz, who nonetheless had allowed his fiction to fall into a bit of a rut by this point in his career, and featuring such F&SF frequent or at least repeat contributors as Gary Jennings, who published a string of short stories with the magazine in the 1960s and '70s well before becoming a bestselling novelist and for a while after; that only his series of Crispin Mobey stories from the magazine have

been collected (and they published under a pseudonym in book form as if a novel) is an odd sort of oversight, even if they might not appeal so readily to his novels' larger audience, and Vance Aandahl, Josephine Saxton, Doris Pitkin Buck (with a rather slight bit of verse, not one of the stronger poems she'd publish with the magazine), and Patrick Meadows (who like Schmitz came to F&SF from Analog, but Meadows only published a single story in John Campbell's magazine before placing a handful with Ferman over a short period). F&SF, like Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine on which it was modeled, was never afraid to include interesting reprints, and this issue includes two from rather different sources: television writer Larry Brody provides a fantasticated spy story, reprinted from 1967 first issue of the comics fanzine Gosh! Wow! (both the story and the fanzine won Alley Awards for that year, then the comics equivalent of a Hugo Award)(Ferman notes a weakness for this kind of thing, and the previous Xmas issue had featured Harlan Ellison's send-up "Santa Claus vs. S.P.I.D.E.R."; Delany's review column is devoted to the film of Barbarella), and the enormously influential Soviet dissident writer Yevgeny Zamyatin's 1920 story "The Cave" is offered in a 1968 translation by consistent 1960s translator Mirra Ginsburg, with an introduction by Sam Moskowitz.  It's notable that both Fritz Leiber, in the 

Maybe the best # of this Ultimate
title, thanks to the Bloch reprint.

Fantastic, and Judith Merril have engaging takes on Clifford Simak's science-fantasy novel The Goblin Reservation in these issues; Samuel Delany's film column for the magazine was sadly short-lived, and their first since Charles Beaumont had conducted one in the late 1950s (with "William Morrison"/Joseph Samachson contributing a more occasional column on stage drama alongside Beaumont's); radio dramatist and bookseller Baird Searles would soon follow Delany at the magazine  for more than a decade, and be succeeded by Harlan Ellison, Kathi Maio and Lucius Shepard, sometimes in alternation. Gahan Wilson's cartoon was already a regular feature, one of Ferman's first innovations in the magazine, and it would appear in every issue till the two had some sort of falling-out in the early '80s...only Isaac Asimov, with his science column, was a more durable regular than Wilson and his cartoons in the magazine's history. 

If Fantastic in those years had relatively randomly-selected reprints, and F&SF rather more carefully-chosen ones that usually ran to relatively recent but (to most fantasy/sf readers, probably) obscure sources, Robert A. W. Lowndes's magazines for the very marginal Health Knowledge Publications managed to get by through Lowndes combing through his collection of pulps and anthologies and collections of fantasy and other sorts of fiction, looking for public-domain items of various sorts and checking with the Copyright Office for records of renewals on the pulp items, often taken from such orphaned magazines as Strange Tales. 

The Magazine of Horror was the first of the fiction magazines Lowndes was able to launch at HK, which was mostly in the business of publishing imitations of the magazine Sexology and the like (after HK collapsed in 1971, Lowndes would be hired at that magazine, at Gernsback Publications). Startling Mystery Stories and Famous Science Fiction followed, and a small slew of others followed those, before the collapse...what distinguished SMS from its elder sibling, as noted above, was that it was devoted more to psychic detective stories, such as those of  Seabury Quinn, once the most popular contributor to Weird Tales (outpacing the likes of H. P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith and Edmond Hamilton by some distance during Farnsworth Wright's editorship), who retained quite a following among the more nostalgic readership of the MOH; SMS not only served as outlet for Quinn stories, so that not so many need appear in the elder magazine, but also served as a place to run stories by horror fiction aspirants whose work wasn't Quite what Lowndes wanted

Lowndes's '69 3rd fantasy title.

for the mothership title (hence the "first stories" by King and Wilson appearing in Startling Mystery rather than Horror; Terry Carr and Ted White's somewhat surreal "The Secret of the City" had appeared in an earlier issue). But aside from some engaging pulp (and earlier p.d. fiction) reprints, some first-rate originals appeared in SMS, as well, including this issue's "The Scar," one of the better early Ramsey Campbell short stories, marking his beginning to take on his own voice and becoming somewhat less simply a promising acolyte of H. P. Lovecraft, and one of August Derleth's most treasured discoveries thus. Much of the issue, as in part with all Lowndes magazines going back through the not quite as low-budget but still low-budget Columbia fiction-magazine days, was devoted to a long editorial (in this issue discussing Poe's contribution to mystery fiction, sparked in part by an article in an early issue of The Armchair Detective), a bibliography of Quinn's Jules de Grandin stories, a Lowndes book and magazine review piece, and a long letter column (free copy, aside from the time spent transcribing letters and answering them). 

The ISFDB indices to these issues, slightly corrected:

• Publication: Fantastic, February 1969
  (View All Issues) (View Issue Grid)
• Editor: Barry N. Malzberg
• Year: 1969-02-00
• Publisher: Ultimate Publishing Co., Inc.
• Price: $0.50
• Pages: 148
• Binding: digest
• Type: MAGAZINE
• Title Reference: Fantastic - 1969
• Cover: Wm. Baker (aka Bill Baker, as below)
• 4 • Editorial: Diversity in Science Fiction • essay by Robert Silverberg
• 6 • Richmond, Late September • short story by Fritz Leiber (variant of Richmond, Late September, 1849)
• 7 •  Richmond, Late September • interior artwork by Bill Baker
• 17 • Any Heads at Home • short story by David R. Bunch
• 20 • Bathe Your Bearings in Blood! • (1950) • short story by Clifford D. Simak (variant of Skirmish)  Amazing Stories Dec 1950 
• 20 •  Bathe Your Bearings in Blood! • (1950) • interior artwork by Leo Summers
• 36 • All in the Game • short story by Edward Y. Breese
• 42 • The Castle on the Crag • short story by Pg Wyal [as by P. G. Wyal]
• 45 • The Major Incitement to Riot • short story by Barry N. Malzberg [as by K. M. O'Donnell]
• 49 • The Life of the Stripe • short story by Piers Anthony
• 52 • Slice of Universe • short story by James Sallis [as by James R. Sallis ]
• 55 • Reason for Honor • short story by Robert Hoskins
• 59 • The Closed Door • (1953) • short story by Kendell Foster Crossen [as by Kendall Foster Crossen] Amazing Stories Aug/Sep 1953
• 63 •  The Closed Door • (1953) • interior artwork by uncredited
• 77 • The Origin of Species • short story by Jody Scott [as by Jody Scott Wood]
• 78 • Grounds for Divorce • short story by Robert S. Phillips
• 81 • This Planet for Sale • (1952) • novelette by Ralph Sholto Fantastic Adventures Jul 1952
• 81 •  This Planet for Sale • (1952) • interior artwork by Paul Lundy
• 109 • The Day After Eternity • (1955) • novelette by unknown [as by Lawrence Chandler] Fantastic Feb 1955
• 110 •  The Day After Eternity • (1955) • interior artwork by Ernie Barth
• 142 • Fantasy Books (Fantastic, February 1969) • [Fantasy Books (Fantastic)] • essay by Fritz Leiber
• 142 •   Review: The Goblin Reservation by Clifford D. Simak • review by Fritz Leiber
• 143 •   Review: The Crystal World by J. G. Ballard • review by Fritz Leiber
• 143 •   Review: October the First Is Too Late by Fred Hoyle • review by Fritz Leiber
• 144 •   Review: Restoree by Anne McCaffrey • review by Margo Skinner
• 145 •   Review: Pity About Earth by Ernest Hill • review by Margo Skinner

the first issue, 1969

• Publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1969
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• Editor: Edward L. Ferman
• Year: 1969-02-00
• Publisher: Mercury Press, Inc.
• Price: $0.50
• Pages: 132
• Binding: digest
• Type: MAGAZINE
• Title Reference: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction - 1969
• Cover: Russell FitzGerald
• 5 • Attitudes • [The Hub] • novelette by James H. Schmitz
• 22 • Books (F&SF, February 1969) • [Books (F&SF)] • essay by Judith Merril and Gahan Wilson
• 22 •   Review: Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner • review by Judith Merril
• 22 •   Review: The Two-Timers by Bob Shaw • review by Judith Merril
• 22 •   Review: Isle of the Dead by Roger Zelazny • review by Judith Merril
• 23 •   Review: The Goblin Reservation by Clifford D. Simak • review by Judith Merril
• 26 •   Review: Selected Letters, 1911-1924 by H. P. Lovecraft • review by Gahan Wilson
• 26 •   Review: Selected Letters, 1925-1929 by H. P. Lovecraft • review by Gahan Wilson
• 27 •   Review: Ghosts in Irish Houses by James Reynolds • review by Gahan Wilson
• 28 •  Cartoon: "In Here." • interior artwork by Gahan Wilson
• 29 • The Cave (Introduction) • essay by Sam Moskowitz
• 31 • The Cave • short story by Yevgeny Zamyatin (trans. of Пещера 1920 by Mirra Ginsburg) reprinted from The Dragon, Random House 1968; translated from the Russian (1922) [note date discrepancy between ISFDB and the FictionMags Index]
• 40 • Nightwalker • (Gosh! Wow! #1 1967) • short story by Larry Brody
• 53 • Films: Barbarella • [Films (F&SF)] • essay by Samuel R. Delany
• 54 • Dormant Soul • short story by Josephine Saxton
• 70 • Drool • shor tstory by Vance Aandahl
• 73 • Twin Sisters • poem by Doris Pitkin Buck
• 74 • Pater One Pater Two • novelette by Patrick Meadows
• 104 • Uncertain, Coy, and Hard to Please • [Asimov's Essays: F&SF] • essay by Isaac Asimov
• 116 • After All the Dreaming Ends • short story by Gary Jennings

the 2nd, and only 1969, issue

• Publication: Startling Mystery Stories, Summer 1969
  (View All Issues) (View Issue Grid)
• Editor: Robert A. W. Lowndes
• Year: 1969-00-00
• Publisher: Health Knowledge, Inc.
• Price: $0.50
• Pages: 134
• Binding: digest
• Type: MAGAZINE
• Title Reference: Startling Mystery Stories - 1969
• Cover: Richard Schmand
• 4 • The Editor's Page (Startling Mystery Stories, Summer 1969) • essay by Robert A. W. Lowndes
• 8 • The Gray Killer • (Weird Tales, November 1929) • novelette by Everil Worrell
• 31 • The Scar • short story by Ramsey Campbell [as by J. Ramsey Campbell ]
• 46 • Where There's Smoke • short story by Donna Gould Welk
• 52 • Ancient Fires • [Jules de Grandin] • (Weird Tales, September 1926) • novelette by Seabury Quinn
• 76 • The Cases of Jules de Grandin: A Chronological Listing, Part 1 • essay by Robert A. W. Lowndes
• 84 • The Hansom Cab • short story by Ken Porter
• 90 • Inquisitions (Startling Mystery Stories, Summer 1969) • essay by Robert A. W. Lowndes
• 90 •  Review: Mr. Fairlee's Final Journey by August Derleth (Mycroft & Moran 1968) • review by Robert A. W. Lowndes
• 91 •  Review: The Man with the Watches and The Lost Special by Arthur Conan Doyle (Luther Norris 1969?)  • review by Robert A. W. Lowndes
• 92  •  Review: The Baker Street Journal edited by Julian Wolff  •  review by Robert A. W. Lowndes
• 92  •  Review: The Armchair Detective edited by Allen J. Hubin  •  review by Robert A. W. Lowndes
• 93  •  Review: The Rohmer Review edited by Douglas Rossman  •  review by Robert A. W. Lowndes
• 94 • The Veil of Tanit • (Strange Tales, March 1932) • novelette by Eugene de Reszke [as by Eugene de Rezske ]
• 113 • The Cauldron (Startling Mystery Stories, Summer 1969) • letter co;umm by various (Stuart David Schiff, Luther Norris, Roger Vanous and others)

For more of today's (actual) books, please see Patti Abbott's blog.

And...the contents of the third Strange Fantasy, "#10", pictured above (courtesy the FictionMags Index):

Strange Fantasy [#10, Fall 1969] (50¢, 132pp, digest)
• fc. · [front cover] · Robert Fuqua & H. W. McCauley · cv Fantastic Adventures Feb 1942
• 4 · The Girl Who Played Wolf · Gordon Dickson · nv Fantastic Aug 1958
• 22 · Giants of the Earth · Lee Owens · ms Fantastic Adventures Aug 1951
• 23 · Satan’s Footprints [from Great World Mysteries] · Eric Frank Russell · ar Dobson 1957
• 39 · The Mind Spider · Fritz Leiber · ss Fantastic Nov 1959
• 54 · Egyptian Festival for Ares · Kay Bennett · ms Fantastic Adventures Jan 1948
• 55 · The Gift · Ray Bradbury · vi Esquire Dec 1952
• 57 · And the Rains Came... · Dan Corliss · vi Fantastic Adventures May 1950
• 58 · Candlesticks · Dean Evans · ss Fantastic Nov/Dec 1952
• 76 · The Odyssey of Henry Thistle · Vern Fearing · nv Fantastic Jan/Feb 1954
• 97 · April in Paris · Ursula K. Le Guin · ss Fantastic Sep 1962
• 108 · Sacred Crocodile · Pete Bogg · ms Fantastic Adventures Feb 1949
• 109 · The House · Fredric Brown · vi Fantastic Aug 1960
• 112 · The Devil’s Due · Donald Moffitt · ss Fantastic May 1960
• 120 · Miranda · John Jakes · ss Fantastic May 1965

Overlooked Films and/or Other A/V: the links to the reviews, interviews and more

As always, please let me know if I've missed your or anyone else's contribution this week in comments...thanks.

Anne Billson: Les malheurs de Sophie and 11 older films; poetry in film

Anonymous: Strike (1925 film); Jour de fate; Broken Blossoms; Man with a Camera; The Conformist; The Sunflower

Bhob Stewart: Dennis Potter teleplays for BBC's Play for Today: "Double Dare"; "Blue Hills Remembered" (scroll down! a possibly NSFW painting is also on the way as one scrolls)

The Big Broadcast: 24 April 

• 07:00p Johnny Dollar
  01/08/61 #722 The Paperback Mystery (Multiple Sponsors) (CBS) (22:48)
• 07:20p Bob & Ray segments from NBC? MBS?
• 07:30p Dragnet
  08/10/54 #260 Big Wish (NBC) (24:36)
• 08:00p Gunsmoke
  08/11/57 #279 Jayhawkers (04/04/53) (Sus.) (CBS) (28:42)
• 08:30p Aldrich Family
  #438 Grab Bag Sale at Springer's Dept. Store (Jello) (NBC) (29:38)
• 09:00p Halls of Ivy
  05/10/50 #19 Mrs. Whitney's Statue (Schlitz Beer) (NBC) (29:58)
• 09:30p Dr. Kildare
  02/22/50 Alice Bradley (MGM Syndication) (28:08)
• 10:00p Lux Radio Theater
  10/07/40 Wings of the Navy (Lux) (CBS) (59:52)

Bill Crider: You Never Can Tell  [blurry excerpt]

Brian Arnold: Jim Henson's Sam and Friends; Henson's Wilkins Coffee commercials; 1980s Saturday morning cartoon PSAs

NBC Experiment in Television: "The Cube" (produced, written [with Jerry Juhl] and directed by Jim Henson), 1969


B.V. Lawson: Media Murder

Colin McGulgan: Ambush

Comedy Film Nerds: Geoff Tate

Cult TV: The Avengers: "Nightmare"

Cynthia Fuchs: Elvis and Nixon; The Other Side

Dan Stumpf: Seven Sinners (aka Doomed Cargo)

The Dana Gould Hour: The People v. O. J. Simpson; Stan v. Evil's Laraine Newman and Janet Varney

David Vineyard: Crackerjack

Elizabeth Foxwell:  X Marks the Spot; Doris Roberts in Brenner

Gary Deane: La noche avanza

George Kelley: Escape from Alcatraz

Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast: Kliph Nesteroff

"Gilligan Newton-John": Jeunes Filles Impudiques; Les Démoniaques (some NSFW imagery)

Iba Dawson: Sundance Festival recap

Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.: Spies (1928 film); Try and Get Me!

Jackie Kashian: Mike Lawrence on professional wrestling and its offshoots

Jackie Kashian and Laurie Kilmartin: The Jackie and Laurie Show

James Clark: Le doulos

James Reasoner: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Janet Varney: Tawny Newsome

Jerry House: Batman (1943 movie serial); Tedx: Niko Everett: Meet Yourself

"John Grant": Daring Daughters; Cha Wu Ci Ren

Jonathan Lewis: Wagon Master; Beast of the Yellow Night; Secret of the Incas

Juri Nummelin: Battle Beyond the Stars

Justin LaLiberty: underrated 1986 films

Karen Hannsberry: Turner Classic Movies Film Festival 2015

Ken Levine: Disneyland 1964

Kristina Dijan: The Earrings of Madame de...; The Fearless Vampire Killers

The Half-Naked Truth

Laura G: Deception; Key Witness; Dead Reckoning; Young Man with a Horn; Meet Danny Wilson; Outside the Wall; Flesh and Fury

Lucy Brown: The Half-Naked Truth

Martin Edwards: The Gray Man; Marcella

Marty McKee: Tarzan and the Valley of Gold; Assassination; Trouble Man; The Eiger Sanction 

The Gray Man...about Albert Fish

Mildred Perkins: Night of the Living Dorks; Ender's Game

Mitchell Hadley: television, Minneapolis/St. Paul, MayDay 1968

Patricia Nolan-Hall: City for Conquest

Patti Abbott: Raising Arizona

Rick: Phantom Lady; Empire of the Ants; insect movies; The Prize; Cinderella (the film of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical)

Robert/Television Obscurities: Glynis

Rod Lott: King Kong Lives; Shadows in an Empty Room; Body Chemistry 4: Full Exposure; Flight 7500

Ruth Kerr: Woman on the Run

Sam Juliano: Tribeca 2016

Sergio Angelini: The Scarlet Claw (aka Sherlock Holmes in Canada); Hitchcock film poll

Stacia Jones: Brotherly Love; Not So Dumb; The Woman in White; The Florodora Girl

Steve Lewis: The Ray Bradbury Theater: "The Crowd"

Vienna: Samuel Goldwyn Productions; Universal Pictures

Walter Albert: Peter Pan (1924 film)

Peter Pan, Yankee Patriot:


My Favorite Brunette